NOV. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Rosneft, the Russian oil and gas company, bought Armenia’s Petrol Market chain of petrol stations for $40m, media reported, extending Russian influence over the country. Media reported that the deal was made in August but only reported now.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Kazakhstan’s energy minister Vladimir Shkolnik said 40,000 people working in the country’s oil and gas sector could lose their jobs next year if energy prices continued to stay low. He said the depressed price of oil had decimated the oil and gas sector.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — PetroChina, a subsidiary of China’s state-owned energy company CNPC, said it wants to sell a 50% stake in the Central Asia-China gas pipeline for $2.4b in order to turn a profit this year, a requirement in its government mandate.
The likely buyer of the 50% stake in the Central Asia-China pipeline is another Chinese company, state-owned China Reform Holdings, Bloomberg reported.
The ownership switch shouldn’t change operations at the pipeline, which mainly pumps gas from Turkmenistan, but its does highlight both China’s ownership of energy infrastructure in Central Asia and, also, how pressure on profits in China is having an impact in the region.
China’s economy has slowed this year, undermining commodities prices around the world and triggering a switch in policy from China across various industries. In the oil and gas sector, it plans to unbundle upstream and midstream operations, a process that will have an effect on oil and gas fields across Central Asia as well as on pipelines.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 25 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Canada-based Tethys Petroleum extended an exclusivity period by 14 days for Kazakhstan’s Olisol to submit final details of its $35m buyout offer to Dec. 7. Tethys has also now appointed Alexander Abramov and William Wells to its board meeting, a pre-condition of the offer.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 27 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Oil producers suffered in the London stock market this week, due to mixed industrial announcements.
Tethys Petroleum shares lost 13% in one week closing at 4.25p on Friday. Nostrum Oil & Gas was on track to a similar fall after it lost 9% on Monday, recovering later in the week after it showed its investment plans for a new gas treatment facility. On Friday, Nostrum closed at 376p, down 3.5%. Roxi Petroleum shares closed at 7.75p on Friday, down 5% from last week.
Central Asia Metals lost 2.2% this week to close at 161.5p on Friday, while the other major miner in Kazakhstan, KAZ Minerals, gained 7.8% to 99.8p.
Newly-listed Georgia Healthcare Group lost around 2% this week to close at 177p on Friday.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 26 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Tengizchevroil (TCO), the consortium producing oil at the Tengiz field near Atyrau in west Kazakhstan, has stopped oil shipments via tanker from the Caspian port of Aktau because of high Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) export tariffs, a port official told Astana TV.
TCO declined to deny the story. Instead it confirmed that it was now exporting more of its oil through the CPC pipeline which pumps oil from Tengiz around the top of the Caspian Sea to Novorossiysk in Russia.
In an interview with Astana TV, a channel owned by the ruling Nur Otan party, Marat Ormanov, director at KazMorTransFlot, the shipping subsidiary of Kazmunaigas, said TCO shipment for crude oil had dropped to zero.
“TCO left in July, re-routing its entire output through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium. Other companies have followed suit and now there is almost no one left in Aktau,” Mr Ormanov said.
A news reporter for Astana TV then quoted him as saying that part of the reason that TCO had quit the Caspian Sea route was because of increased export tariffs imposed by the EEU. The EEU is the Kremlin-led trade bloc that includes Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia.
In December 2013, tankers shipped over 77,000 tonnes of oil every week from Aktau across the Caspian Sea. This year, KazMorTransFlot had planned to send a similar amount to both Makhachkala and Baku. Oil production in Kazakhstan has dropped off this year because of a slump in prices. Companies have also been looking for cheaper ways to export it.
This has coincided with the introduction of EEU rules and tariffs which many businesses have complained add a layer of bureaucracy and complicate business.
The Tengiz field is important to Kazakhstan. It is its biggest and, arguably, most successful oil project. The partners in the project are Chevron, ExxonMobil, Kazmunaigas and LukArco.
In response to the Astana TV interview, TCO told The Bulletin that it was moving away from exporting oil via Aktau.
“TCO has maximised transportation through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium system so as to take advantage of this more cost-effective route,” said Yerlan Kassym, public affairs adviser.
“As a result, transportation through other routes, including the more expensive southern route via the Aktau port, have been minimised.”
TCO declined to comment on EEU tariffs and duties. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) is exempt from EEU tariffs because it is classified as an international pipeline.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 22 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — Dubai-based Dragon Oil said it was considering investing in the proposed TAPI gas pipeline project which aims to deliver gas from Turkmenistan to India, an important show of Western support for the often derided project.
As reported in the FT, Dragon Oil said it has started talks with Turkmenistan over an investment in TAPI, a pipeline that will stretch 1,700km across Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“This [discussions on TAPI] has been ongoing for a long time. But now it’s very serious, things have been signed between the countries. That’s why we have shown our interest to go in,” Faisal Rabee Al Awadhi, general manager for Dragon Oil in Turkmenistan, told the FT at an oil and gas conference in Ashgabat.
Dragon Oil didn’t say what stage its negotiations with Turkmenistan were at, how much it was considering investing or when a final decision would be made. Other, bigger, Western oil and gas companies have decided not to invest in TAPI.
Dragon Oil already operates an oil field in Turkmenistan.
Turkmenistan’s state-owned gas company Turkmengas is the project leader for TAPI, which is slated to cost $10b.
Construction is supposed to start in December but it is a controversial project. Concern over security – the route crosses territory fought over by central government forces and the Taliban – has raised serious questions over whether the pipeline will ever be built at all.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 23 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Turkmen president Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov flew to Tehran for the third Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), sometimes dubbed the OPEC of gas, taking the normally reclusive state into the mainstream.
Generally unwilling to participate in international organisations, Turkmenistan accepted an invitation from GECF to attended its forum as a guest. Mr Berdymukhamedov’s acceptance of the invitation showed that he wants to play a deeper role in shaping global energy prices and policy.
A disparate group of 12 major gas exporting countries, the GECF meets biannually to try to set the agenda for world gas prices. In contrast to OPEC, a group of oil exporting countries, it has little power to influence price or sway production plans.
Gas prices are generally indexed to oil prices.
At the Forum, Mr Berdymukhamedov also held a side meeting with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani. Russian president Vladimir Putin also attended the forum.
According to Simon Pirani, senior researcher at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, Turkmenistan’s activity at the Forum had a diplomatic, rather than commercial tone. He said Turkmenistan remain fixed to its China-centric export strategy.
“Exports to Russia will remain low, which will preserve relations with Russia, but there is not much that Turkmenistan can do in the short term to diversify its exports, especially due to its traditional policy of selling gas at the border,” Mr Pirani told the Bulletin.
GECF is a high profile, but still relatively impotent group. It aspires to hold the influence that OPEC wields but is more of a talking shop.
Members of GECF are Iran, Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. Azerbaijan, Iraq, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Norway, Oman and Peru have observer status.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) – Azerbaijan’s state-owned energy company SOCAR said it produced 5.76b cubic metres of gas in the first 10 months of the year, down 5.5% compared to last year. Oil and gas exports are vital to the Azerbaijani economy.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)
NOV. 20 2015 (The Conway Bulletin) — KMG International, a subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s state-owned energy company Kazmunaigas, will invest $6m in the modernisation of the Petromidia Navodari refinery in Romania. KMG International owns Rompetrol. The Petromidia refinery has a capacity of 5m tonnes/year and is located just north of Constanta, Romania’s main Black Sea port. The upgrade will be completed by 2018.
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(News report from Issue No. 258, published on Nov. 27 2015)